The Legacy
by LadyExcalibur2010
Summary: Edward never returned to Forks after the events of New Moon. Bella never jumped from the cliff. Now Bella's short human years are over and Edward returns to Forks to say good-bye. There he makes a surprising discovery.
1. Chapter 1

Sadly, I don't own Twilight or any of the characters in it. Those are the sole property of Ms. Meyers and I merely play in her sandbox (gosh that sounded dirty!). Anyway, I don't make any money from my scribblings, but I do get a lot of joy. So here you go.

**The Legacy**

I knelt by the gravestone, my fingers running over the words etched there. It did not seem like it had been seventy years since I had seen her, but her life had been lived and was now over and mine was…exactly the same – empty and meaningless. "Bella." I said her name for the first time in decades; I allowed her memory to fill me up.

Closing my eyes, I could almost _smell_ her again, that tantalizing scent of flowers and something else I could never identify that was simply Bella. I heard her laughter in the wind, saw her face in my mind, and for just that instant, we were reunited.

"She always told me you'd come." The words came from behind me, spoken by a voice that was soft and musical, holding just a hint of disbelief. I surged to my feet and whirled around to face the speaker.

"Excuse me?" I asked, wondering why this young woman looked familiar – but not.

"Nana Bells," the young woman said, pointing to the grave stone. "She always told me that you'd come back." She smiled at me. "And she wanted me to give you a message."

"I…" I swallowed hard. "The message?"

The young woman looked at me for a moment and then shook her head. "Not yet," she murmured. "Later, if I think you're ready for it, I'll tell you."

"Who are you to decide if-"

"I'm her great-granddaughter, Cassie," she said. "And you're Edward Cullen." A sly smile slid into place. "You're the vampire my great-grandmother loved."

I felt the earth shift under my feet. This girl knew. What had Bella told her? And why? To what purpose? I looked at Bella's grave as if she might give me the answers.

"Don't worry," came Cassie's soft reassurance. "I'm the only one she told."

"Why? What did she tell you?" I could not help the words from spilling from my lips.

Instead of answering me, Cassie knelt by the grave and placed some flowers I had not noticed she was carrying tenderly by the stone. She paused for a moment and I saw her lips moving, but I could not tell if she was actually speaking. Suddenly, she looked up at me, her expression curious. "Can you hear me?" she asked. "I mean, my thoughts. Can you hear what I'm thinking?"

And for the second time in my existence, I listened intently and heard…nothing.

Cassie saw my answer on my face and laughed softly. "Oh, Nana Bells always wondered if her brain quirk, as she called it, would be inherited." There was a note of smug satisfaction in Cassie's voice. "She'd be thrilled to know that it was."

With unexpected grace, she was Bella's descendent after all, Cassie rose to her feet. She was taller than Bella had been, probably only about five inches shorter than me. Her body was long and lean and willowy, a strong body. Her eyes were shaped like Bella's, large and doe-like, but they were very dark, almost black. Her hair was also dark, hanging down in her back in an inky, straight waterfall. Her skin was darker than Bella's, a soft peach where Bella's had been purest ivory. I could see subtle signs of Bella in her face, but this young woman was entirely her own being, her Quileute blood blending beautifully with Bella's. "I'm Cassie McBride," she said, holding out her hand.

I took it out of habit, still reeling from what this self-possessed young woman had revealed to me.

"So…" I hardly knew where to begin. "Bella married Jacob."

Cassie laughed and casually put her arm through mine as if we were the oldest and best of friends. "Ah yes, Papa Jake," she said with great fondness. "They were married about three years after you left."

I looked down at her, bemused. "You seem to know much about me," I could not help the note of sourness in my voice and she laughed yet again. "But I don't know anything about you."

"Well then, let's put us on a little more even playing field, shall we?" Cassie seemed to find my words amusing, though I was beginning to think that she found pretty much _everything_ funny. She looked up at me through her lashes and bit her lip. It is a gesture that is heartbreakingly familiar. "You really are as serious as Nana Bells said you were."

"I'm glad I amuse you," I muttered.

Cassie's laughter, a sound I was fast becoming accustomed to, rang out with delighted abandon. "It's almost too easy to tease you," she said. Then her expression grew solemn. "All right then, let me fill you in on the details of the life of Bella Swan Black."

Just the sound of her name, with the addition of_ his_ name, caused the sorrow return.

"All right, I told you that she married Papa Jacob when she was twenty-one," Cassie continued blithely. "Well, my grandfather was born about two years later. His name was Charles William Black."

"Named after their fathers," I noted.

"Exactly," Cassie replied. "They never had any more kids; she never told me why." Cassie's voice grew contemplative. "Anyway, their son died when he was twenty-five – cancer. He went fast, but not before his wife gave birth to a daughter…my mother."

"Bella must have been devastated," I said quietly. "I didn't want her to-"

Cassie stopped walking and looked at me, her eyes capturing mine. "You wanted her to have a human life," she said softly. "Human lives are often messy and sad. You got your wish – she lived a perfectly human life."

I flinched from the unintentional cruelty of her words.

Her hand came up to cradle my jaw. She didn't fear me, even knowing what I was. I wondered if the absence of any sense of self-preservation was simply a family trait. And if so, how had the line survived this long?

With an obvious air of beginning again, she turned and began walking, pulling me with her. "Nana Bells and Papa Jake raised my mother, since her own mother wasn't in the picture much. My mom was named Mackenzie."

"Was?"

"I'm getting to that," Cassie assured me. "So my mother did one of those student exchange programs and ended up in Ireland…where she met my father, Ian McBride. They got married a year later."

"So your mother was Mackenzie McBride?" I asked, a grin already tugging at my lips.

"I know! It's like something out of a bad romance novel, isn't it?" Cassie shook her head. "But they were very much in love and quite happy. I remember that there was always laughter in our house." Her dark eyes were far away.

"They're dead, aren't they?" I asked. I did not need to read her thoughts to interpret the sadness in her voice.

"Yes," Cassie said softly. "When I was twelve…a car accident."

"What happened to you then?"

"Well, Nana Bells faced off with Aunt Rachel and the Irish relatives and told the family that she and Papa Jake would be raising me and there wasn't a damn thing anyone could do to stop her." Cassie's head tilted. "I think they gave in mostly because they knew that Bella and Jake had already lost so many…so much." She shook her head as if banishing unpleasant thoughts.

"And?"

"And they did," Cassie replied with a smirk. "Nana and Papa raised me and loved me and gave me a home."

I had seen Jake's headstone right beside Bella's, his rightful place. I envied him, even dead. "And your great-grandfather?"

Cassie's face grew troubled, but her words were casual enough. "He died of a heart attack about five years ago."

"And…Bella?"

We stopped because Cassie simply quit walking, her hand still resting in the crook of my elbow. "She sort of…faded away, I guess."

We were both silent for a moment, each of us wrapped up in the memories of the woman we loved in such very different ways. "When did she tell you about…about me?"

Once more, we began walking, now out of the cemetery and moving closer to the thick woods that bordered it. "Soon after Papa Jake died," Cassie said softly. "I had my heart broken – or at least I thought I did – by some stupid boy at school."

"And she told you about the stupid boy who had hurt her?" I asked.

"No," Cassie replied. "It wasn't like that." She paused. "I suppose…I suppose that I always knew there was something…._missing_ between them – Nana Bells and Papa Jake, I mean."

"But she loved him?" God help me, why did I want the answer to be no?

"She loved him," Cassie answered carefully. "But…"

"But what?"

"It was like he was always trying so hard and yet there was always this part of her – a small part, but he knew it was there – that she held back." She stopped and looked at me. "And after he died, she told me about you, and I knew that you were that part of her that she kept tucked away from him."

"So they weren't…happy?" Had my sacrifice been for nothing then? Had I condemned her to a flickering human existence that had brought her only sadness?

"They were happy," Cassie said. "But not as happy as they might have been if…if she could have forgotten." She squeezed my arm reassuringly. "She didn't blame you, of course. She understood, and she was grateful that she was there with her father in his last years. He didn't live long after she married Jake, but he lived to see his grandson so he was content."

So much sorrow, so much loss – and such a fleeting number of years. Would it have been better to give into my selfish nature and change Bella, to give her an eternity? It was a question to which I would never know the answer.

"Anyway," Cassie continued. "Nana Bells and I started talking because it was just the two of us and neither one of us really had a lot of friends." She smiled. "And then one day, she took out this…journal, I'd guess you'd call it. It started off with her moving to Forks and it ended with the day she went to the cliffs."

"The cliffs?"

"On the rez, there are some cliffs, and the boys try to impress each other – and the girls – by jumping off of them into the water. Nana Bells was going to jump." Cassie stopped yet again and looked at me. "I never worked up the nerve to ask her if she wanted to die that day, or if she was just going for the adrenaline rush because she wanted to hear-" Abruptly, Cassie stopped. "Never mind, we'll get to that later. Anyway, Papa Jake stopped her at the last minute and from then on… Well, let's just say it pretty much accepted that they'd eventually end up together."

"And they did." I could not help the note of bitterness in my voice.

"They did," Cassie said. "But sometimes I wondered…"

I did not question her, sensing that her answer would not please me.

"Anyway, she told me about you, about meeting you, you saving her life, figuring out what you were, and falling in love with you," Cassie explained. "And she told me about the birthday party and what happened after that."

I could say nothing in my own defense, either for endangering Bella's life to begin with or my abandonment of her. I had been cold and cruel and harsh, but I had been so out of love. I loved Bella, I still did.

I always would.

"Before she died, she told me you'd come back, if only to say good-bye. And I knew she was right. I know things, you see," Cassie told me with a mischievous glint to her dark eyes. "Nana Bells always said it was the fey blood of Ireland in me. I'm not psychic or anything. I can't touch objects and tell you anything about who owned it. But I get…hunches, I guess you'd say. I just know things. Stupid, useless things mostly, but every now and then I know something useful." She looked at me and her lips quirked. "Just like I knew where I'd find you and when."

"Why?"

"I already told you, Nana Bells wanted me to give you a message," Cassie said. "And maybe…" Once more, her words trailed off. "No," she said almost to herself, shaking her head. "Time enough for that later, Cassie McBride."

Gently, tenderly, her long, slender hand, the color of peaches and cream, reached up to cradle my face. "I've come to you for her, Edward Cullen. I'm here because she can't be, and because she trusted me with your secrets."

Cassie smiled and I smiled back though I wasn't sure why.

"You're even more beautiful than I expected," Cassie confessed. "And my expectations were quite high indeed. Your pictures don't do you justice."

"Pictures?"

Cassie laughed at my expression. "You didn't think they'd stay hidden beneath that floorboard forever, did you?"


	2. Chapter 2: Hurricane Cassie

I don't own these characters. They are the sole property of Stephanie Meyers. I only borrow them. No humans are permanently harmed through my actions, though I do confess to harassing, annoying, torturing, and exasperating them – just because it's fun. I make no money from my little stories, sad day. I only play in the sandbox, I didn't build it.

**Chapter 2: Hurricane Cassie**

"_The past is not a package one can lay away." ~Emily Dickinson_

"Come with me," Cassie said, tugging at my hand once more. She did not seem to notice the cold, hard feel of my skin. Or perhaps it was simply nothing less than she expected. Bella would have warned her. Looking over her shoulder at me, she gave me an encouraging smile, one very much like she would have given to a reluctant child. "I don't bite you know," Cassie teased. "I'm only what…one-eighth wolf?"

Then she laughed at her own joke, which made no sense anyway. I had a horrible inkling that I would get used to that before too long, this feeling of confusion and of being off-balance. She was leading me toward her car. Obediently, I got into the passenger seat (it seemed easier than arguing) and Cassie started the car. It roared to life with a well-tuned purr and she turned to grin at me. "Sweet, huh?"

I studied her then, realizing that Cassie McBride was much more than Bella's great-granddaughter. She was her own person, quite separate and distinct from the Bella Swan I had known – and loved in vain – for so many years. Had Bella known that Cassie would find me in my darkest moment? Had she anticipated what I still was contemplating? How could she? As far as Bella knew, I had left her because I had lost interest. Surely, even Bella could not have so much compassion as that. And yet… I glanced at Cassie, seeing not just Bella in her face, but something else, something elusive.

An afternoon with a pretty young woman was not enough to sway me, but perhaps I could find some solace in her presence. After all, I had long since recognized that my choice would not only affect me, but my family as well. I knew quite well the pain it would inflict on those I loved. My family…the only thing in this world besides Bella who made existing at all even bearable.

Perhaps I could find some peace in learning about Bella's life and getting to know, even briefly, this young woman with the ready laugh and mischievous eyes. Then Cassie was peeling out, gravel spewing as the car gave a slight swerve. She glanced at me apologetically. "Sorry, I got my need for speed from my father's side. When he moved to the States, he raced cars for a living. He had a real natural talent for it. He was scary good, like some sort of Jedi for NASCAR or something. Figures, huh? Irony everywhere." Then she winked. "You probably remember what a Jedi is better than most. Even _you_ guys would have seen Star Wars! You probably could repeat every word of dialogue for every movie you've ever seen. Nana Bells said you all had like this amazing memory. Not really fair when it comes to school. Although I don't know why you bothered. Who wants to repeat high school?"

"I'm sorry?" I was confused, having difficulty following her thought processes. She seemed to jump from one topic to another and because I could not read her mind, I was left to follow along as best I could – which was not very well, apparently.

"My father, he was a race car driver," Cassie said. "He died…in a _car accident._ Remember?" She snorted lightly, her lips pressed together as if she was trying to restrain a smile at my expense. I was still trying to work my way through the concepts of Star Wars and high school and NASCAR and… Oh hell, I gave up.

"Yes, right." I paused. "I'm sorry, by the way."

Cassie shrugged as she expertly negotiated a rather treacherous bend in the road. Her heart rate never fluctuated; her hands remained sure and steady on the wheel. "It was a long time ago," she said. "I miss him, but I'm sort of used to them not being here, so it's okay." She glanced at me from beneath long, dark lashes, her eyes flashing with the familiar glint of humor. "But it's sort of funny, don't you think? He died in a car accident? And not even on the track, obviously, since my mother was with him. That would just be testing the bounds of believable, if I said she had been in the car with him on the track, don't you think?" She snorted delicately.

I rather felt as if I was standing in the middle of a hurricane, trying desperately to track several different winds that insisted on buffeting me from every side. It simply could not be done, so I simply let the breezes blow and let them take me where they would.

_Hurricane Cassie,_ I thought with wry amusement.

"Anyway, it was nothing more exciting or tragic than a drunk driver," Cassie was explaining and I tried yet again to keep up. "It wasn't even a big holiday or anything. Not New Year's Eve or a big party day. You sort of expect that sort of shit on New Year's Eve, you know? But no, this was just a Friday night and some guy wanted to blow his paycheck at a bar. And he did. And no one noticed that he'd had too much. Not that it's _their_ fault, of course." Cassie looked at me with a frown. "_You_ wouldn't blame someone else, would you? I just think everyone has to be held accountable for their own actions, and you really can't shoulder the burden for others. I mean, God! It's hard enough to keep track of my own shit, much less anyone else's." She blew out a breath and I wondered if the eye of the storm was approaching – a moment of calm and quiet.

But no.

"The drunk driver died too," Cassie continued. "I've never figured out if that made it better or worse. He wasn't a terrible person; at least I don't think he was. He did something stupid, which we all do. Except hopefully we don't _kill _someone when we do it. I didn't know him. _That_ would be weird too, though, wouldn't it? He left a wife and a newborn baby, so they lost just as much as I did, maybe more. At least I remember my parents and his daughter won't remember him at all!" She threw me another glance, apparently not noticing or caring that I had remained silent. I had nothing to add, and no opportunity to do so in any case.

She bit her lower lip and I had to look away. "Sorry," she apologized softly. "I tend to talk too much all the time, but especially when I'm nervous."

I looked at her then and smirked. "You don't seem the least bit nervous to me," I told her. Perhaps this too, was a trait of the family. Bella had always been impossibly self-possessed. Nothing threw her, nothing seemed to frighten her.

Cassie heaved a sigh of relief. "Good, I mean, great." She sighed again. "It's just a little…_weird_. You're real, and you're here." Her eyes darted my way and then back to the road again. "And you really look exactly the same as you did seventy years ago."

"You knew what I was," I reminded her.

"Yes," she said carefully. "But it's a little different, seeing it for yourself. Seeing this guy who's still young and hot-" Strong white teeth worried a lower lip, but there was no fiery blush in the soft cheek. Just the slightest hint of color that human eyes would never notice stained her cheeks. "Well, what I mean is that you look just like you did in the pictures that Nana showed me. And I know it's been seventy years, and you just can't help but think that even a _vampire _has to age a little bit, you know!?"

"Sorry to disappoint," I murmured dryly.

"You know that's not what I mean," Cassie chided with a roll of her eyes. "It's just that, well, it's like _right_ in my face right now – what you are and what that means." Nibbling again. "I knew it, I understood it, or at least I thought I did. But I have to tell you that it's a whole different ball game to actually see it in action, so to speak."

We pulled to a screeching stop in front of a very familiar house. It was painted red now and the shutters would a bright, blinding blue. She saw me eyeing the house and grinned as she jumped from the car. "I like bright colors, what can I say?" Then she was moving to the front door, entered a security code, and the door opened. She stopped at the threshold. "I don't have to _invite_ you in or anything, do I? That's a myth, right?"

"Myth," I confirmed, moving past her to enter the house. Nothing here was familiar, even the walls were different, as the wall between the dining room and living room had been removed to make one large open space. Inside the colors were as vibrant as I expected after seeing the exterior. They should have clashed, but somehow they worked together and created something lovely. Even her color choices were a force to be reckoned with.

She waved her arms in welcome. "Welcome to the Manor McBride," Cassie announced grandly, dumping her purse on the table in the foyer and toeing off her shoes as she continued to walk. I wasn't sure how she accomplished that without falling on her face, but she did.

Cassie pointed me to a couch, assuming I would sit there. I did. I had no desire to incite the wrath of Hurricane Cassie. She practically danced over to a bookshelf and retrieved a disc with a small scanner. She slipped the disc in and Bella's face filled the small screen. It was an extreme close-up, probably taken within a few years of our departure from Forks. Cassie clicked impatiently. The next picture was from a different angle.

Bella, in a simple white wedding dress.

"Oops," Cassie said, reaching out to change the picture.

"No," I said, touching my hand to hers. "I want…" I took a deep breath. "I _need_ to see."

She stared at me for a moment, her dark eyes wide and sad – and wise. "Okay," she agreed.

More pictures.

Bella standing beside Jake, a minister holding open a Bible as he stood before them. A tender kiss between the large figure of a man and tiny Bella, her white dress a stark contrast to Jacob's dark, russet flesh and midnight hair. Something inside of me broke loose on seeing it, that proof of the life they had created together. _That –all of it - should have been mine_, I thought.

Then pictures of Bella, her belly big and her eyes wide with wonder as her hands rested on the mountain with smug satisfaction. A baby boy, with his father's blunt features and Bella's fine, brown eyes. A small child, playing in a sprinkler, Bella laughing the background as she looked on her son's antics. Countless more, the boy growing up, getting taller and taller until he dwarfed his mother's frame, though he did not reach his father's lofty heights. A lifetime of memories, a life that had been lived and now was over.

And that was why I'd left – so that Bella could have that life, that _child_. All the human things I could never give her. Perhaps my sacrifice had not been in vain after all, though Bella's life had not been as perfect as I would have wished. As Cassie said, human lives are frail and fleeting, sadness as constant a thread as joy. My Bella had lived a perfectly _human_ life, just as I had wished.

Cassie reached out and touched one of the pictures. Bella's son was a man, and this time he was the one kissing a woman in a white gown. Her face was slightly turned away from the camera and toward her husband. Charles Black's big hands cradled her face as they shared a tender nuptial kiss. "He was dead a year later," Cassie said softly.

"That soon?" I asked. Just another risk of living a perfectly human life, I thought.

Cassie nodded. "And my grandmother, well she wasn't good for much after that. She hadn't really planned on being a widow, and a mother, at the age of twenty-five, so Nana Bells and Papa Jake pretty much raised my mom. My grandmother dropped in and out of her life until my mom was twenty. Then my grandmother died and my mom found out when a lawyer told her about a small inheritance. That was the last of my grandmother."

"How terrible," I said.

She shrugged. "I'm sure she did the best she could. It couldn't have been easy and she didn't have any family of her own," Cassie replied and I was struck by how generous and warm her heart must be, surely a gift from my Bella. Yes, Bella would have been compassionate to the woman her son had loved. She would have raised her granddaughter and showered upon that child all of the love in her heart, love for her own child that had been taken from her, and the unique love one gives to a grandchild.

"So I guess the wolf line ended with Papa Jake," Cassie said off-handedly.

I stared at her. "Excuse me…uh…what?" Once more she had me floundering and adrift upon a sea of confusion. There it was again, the mention of wolves. Memories of one hundred forty years ago drifted through my mind. Surely she did not mean -

"The wolf line," Cassie explained with a roll of her eyes. Oh yes, she _did_ mean - "Papa Jake's was the last generation to phase, and once they killed Victoria, even they stopped. And the wolves disappeared again."

Victoria. Wolves. Phasing. Quileute legends. Quileute _facts_.

It appeared that there was much I still did not know about the life Bella had lived once I left her. I resolved to find out, and I knew that Cassie would help me. She grinned back at me, perhaps sensing that she had taken me by surprise. No easy feat with a vampire.

But then again, she was hurricane Cassie – and even our kind were not immune to the forces of nature herself.


	3. Chapter 3: Beautiful Scars

**Chapter 3: Beautiful Scars**

"_Hate leaves ugly scars, love leaves beautiful ones." ~Mignon McLaughlin_

"The wolves," I said quietly. "They…returned?" This was extraordinary. None of us had expected the wolves to return. We thought that they had died out with Ephraim Black.

Cassie sighed and settled back into the couch, her stillness so unexpected and complete that I might have thought her a vampire if I did not know better. "The way Nana Bells explained it was that some members of the Quileute tribe carry this gene. And it just lays there, dormant, unless…" Her dark eyes flickered toward me. "Well, unless a vampire is close by."

"Like my family," I mused aloud.

"Yep," Cassie confirmed. "Only in this case, after your family left, it was Victoria." I was surprised to hear the note of disgust in Cassie's voice. After all, she would not have known Victoria.

"But I still don't understand," I said, going back to my initial confusion when Cassie had mentioned Victoria. "Why would Victoria have returned?" I asked, still puzzled and trying to connect the dots.

Rolling her eyes, Cassie shook her head. "And you're supposed to be so smart…" she mocked. Then she waited, letting me sift through what she had told me and put it together with what I knew of Victoria.

"Oh…" I breathed. "She came back for Bella."

Cassie nodded. "There's hope for you yet," she teased, her lips pulling up in a smile. "Anyway, first Laurent came back, and the wolves took care of _him_."

I felt the anger building up in me, though it was decades too late to appease it by ripping Laurent apart. A low growl rumbled in my chest as I imagined Laurent stalking Bella, waiting for his chance to strike. Why had he returned? I knew he had left the Denali clan not too long after he arrived, but I had no clue that he had returned to Forks. If I had known I would have –

A small, warm hand on my arm distracted me. "Don't," she said softly. "It was a long time ago." Then she grimaced. "Well, to my kind it was a long time ago," Cassie conceded. "Okay," she breathed. "Anyway, back to my story." She threw me a cautionary glance that made me smile, though I had no idea why it did so. "Laurent came back, tried to sink his teeth into Nana Bells, but got teeth sunk into _his _ass instead." She grinned at me. "Papa Jake said it was pretty damned sweet to take down the bloo-" Cassie made a face. "Well, you know."

"The bloodsucker," I finished wryly for her. It took no great imagination to complete the sentence.

"Exactly," she said breezily and continued on with her story. "So they took down Laurent, which made them all very happy young wolves, let me tell you." Cassie winked. "But it made Victoria one very unhappy vampire, so several months later she decided to give it a shot herself." Cassie clucked her tongue. "Not the wisest move with a very large pack of werewolves in the vicinity."

"Large?" I asked, suddenly distracted. Again. "How large?" This was curious. The last pack had been small, not that they needed numbers to take down a vampire, especially one alone.

"There were twelve by the time Victoria showed her ugly face," Cassie replied. "And even though she tried to play games with them, they finally got her cornered and the rest, as they say, is history."

"The wolves killed Laurent and Victoria?" I was more interested in the fact that they had returned to do Bella harm than their eventual fates. How had I missed that? Obviously, I had been too focused on James and his horrific plans for Bella to even consider what his coven members might do. I had not only abandoned Bella, I had exposed her to horrible danger.

Cassie snorted and once more I was pulled into the present. "That's what they were made to do, you know."

"Oh, I know," I acknowledged dryly and Cassie laughed, hitting me playfully on the arm. She pulled her hand away and shook it.

"Damn, you really are hard as a rock!" And then a priceless expression came over her and she looked at me, her eyes wide with horrified amusement. That light, almost imperceptible stain of blood kissed her cheeks and I smirked at her. "All righty then," she continued in a strained voice. "Now that I've made a complete ass out of myself in front of the vampire, let's continue. Shall we?"

"Yes," I agreed. "Let's. But I do have some questions."

"I imagined you would," Cassie replied with a smirk.

I rolled my eyes at her. "You say that Jake told you about killing Laurent. But I thought that Bella was the one who told you about…us."

"That's right," Cassie murmured. "As I got older, I became more and more interested in the Quileute legends, more interested in my history. Apparently, I was a bit of a pain about it and persistent as hell. I didn't think I was getting enough information and being me, I decided to snoop. I _knew_ they were holding back on me and I didn't like it one little bit. And one day I found a book in the attic, and it had a bunch of Quileute legends in it. I read it, and I asked Papa Jake about the wolves."

"And he just told you?" I found this rather hard to believe.

"Not right away," Cassie said, shaking her head and laughing. "In fact, he was a little put out that I was asking in the first place." She sighed and sat back, an expression of sad affection crossing her face. "And then…"

"And then what?" My curiosity was almost painful.

"And then Nana got hold of him," Cassie answered with a grin. "And you've never seen anything funnier than a man who is more than six and a half feet tall backing away from a tiny little old woman with her finger poking him in the chest and giving him hell."

I let the image rise up in my mind, I appreciated the humor in it, and then I felt the pang of loss. Would it always be so?

"So Papa Jake spilled the beans about the wolves and the Cold Ones," Cassie continued, her dark eyes alight with wicked amusement. "But nary a word about the Cullens, of course." She glanced at me from beneath long lashes. "Odd, but I don't think he cared that much for you." Her lips twitched, the laughter close beneath the surface as it always seemed to be with her.

I had to laugh and Cassie joined me. "No, I imagine he didn't."

"But no, he didn't tell me about you or your family," Cassie said softly, the note of sadness returning. "I think now that he and Nana came to an agreement of sorts. She wanted him to tell me about the wolves, because it was part of me." Cassie tilted her head and smiled and for once, she looked like Bella. "But you…you were hers." I felt a jolt run through me. "Your story wasn't Papa Jake's to tell. I think she knew that one day she'd tell me all about you and your family."

"And she did."

"Not right away, not until Papa passed away," Cassie reminded me gently. "I think she just didn't want to hurt him, or it seemed like the right time, or she just _needed_ to tell me." Cassie shrugged. "In any case, I learned about the wolves, and once I did Papa Jake and Uncle Seth couldn't wait to tell me all about some of their more glorious exploits." She laughed. "Of course, I think they were a little disappointed they only got to take down _two_ vampires."

"I imagine that _was_ rather frustrating for them," I agreed with a rueful smile. 

"But after Papa was gone, and I had my heart broken, Nana slowly started telling me your story – and hers." Cassie's face glowed with Bella's memory.

We both are silent for a long moment, each of us caught up in our own memories of Bella Swan. _Bella Swan Black_, a small voice reminds me. And I embrace that pain as well. It is penance, the price I agreed to pay long ago. I was not surprised to find her hand over mine, giving it a gentle squeeze.

"You know she was okay…eventually, right?"

I met Cassie's dark eyes and I swallowed hard. "Do you think that's really true?"

She smiled and nodded. "I'm not saying she ever stopped missing you – or loving you, for that matter. But she was okay, and she lived her life just as you wanted her to. She got married and had a child, and that child had a child…the whole 'circle of life' thing you were so anxious for her to have. It was a very human existence and she had it, all of it. There was bad stuff in there, sure, but you can't have the good without the bad."

"Did she ever forgive me?"

I wanted her quick reassurance, but instead Cassie sat back and studied me carefully. "Do you want the easy answer or the truth?"

If I had a heart it would have stopped.

"The truth." I paused. "I think," I added more honestly.

"Yes, I think she forgave you," Cassie answered. "But it didn't happen quickly. I think that once she figured it all out in her own head, the forgiveness part came easier. I don't think she ever understood it, not really, but she forgave." Cassie shrugged. "That's who she was."

I knew that much for myself. Bella's heart had always been generous.

"But the thing you have to realize is that for years, she didn't know the real reason you left."

I looked at Cassie warily. "What do you mean?"

"For a long time, she believed the lie you told her," Cassie murmured. "And for a long time that hurt."

"I-"

"No," Cassie interrupted. "Let me finish." She sighed deeply and twisted her hands together. "Part of what hurt her so much was the feeling that she wasn't good enough. We talked about that so many times…" Cassie's smile trembled on her lips. "Thinking that you had stopped loving her, that's what hurt the most – even more than you leaving."

Agony.

"Then she had what she called an epiphany," Cassie continued with a grin. "She never said what triggered it, but she said that she finally figured out that you _did_ love her, but that you didn't want her to lead the life you do. So you left. And she was forced to make a life for herself, a real human life that came with all the baggage that entails."

"It was for the best," I muttered, but my words lacked conviction. I knew that.

Cassie's eyes narrowed. "Well, I guess that was for you two to judge," she answered neutrally. "But we talked about it a lot, Nana and me. We talked about your feelings about your soul, how you saw yourself, what you thought of the existence you led." She paused.

"And?"

"And the more we talked, the more I came to the conclusion that…" Her words trailed off and that light dusting of color came to her cheeks once more.

"You concluded what?" My curiosity was a living thing with claws, ripping at me.

She blew out a breath and then looked me in the eyes. "I think you need to get over it, Edward. You can't change it. This is it, your only shot. You're doing the best with the cards you were dealt, and that's the only fucking thing any of us can do." Cassie cradled my face gently in her capable hands. "You need to get over yourself, pretty boy, and deal with your own shit as it comes, because really, when you get down to it, there are no other options. You are what you are, just like everybody else."

Once more, Hurricane Cassie was getting the last word.

Then she leaned over and pressed a swift, chaste kiss against my cold cheek. "Now, I've got something for you," she said as she rose to her feet. A few moments later, she returned and settled back on the couch, three large notebooks in her arms.

She extended them to me. "Here," Cassie said. "These are yours."

I stared at her for a moment, confused. Again. What a surprise. I quirked one brow at her in question.

A slightly smug expression came over her face and she gave a soft, throaty chuckle. "They're Nana Bells' journals," she explained. "And she wrote them for you." She paused. "She wanted me to give them to you if I ever got the chance."

Oh. I wasn't sure I was ready for this, but one look at Cassie's face told me that I didn't have much choice. She tilted her head and leveled her narrowed eyes at me.

And I wondered if somehow she was related to Rose.

A terrifying notion.


	4. Chapter 4: Monstrous Absurdities

**Chapter 4: Monstrous Absurdities**

"_What monstrous absurdities and paradoxes have resisted whole batteries of serious arguments, and then crumbled swiftly into dust before the ringing death-knell of a laugh!" ~Agnes Repplier_

Cassie watched me carefully as I ran a reverent hand over the journal resting on top of the stack. I glanced up at her sheepishly. "I'm sorry," I murmured. "I just-" I took a deep breath. "I wasn't expecting anything like this." I was aware that there was a hole in my chest, and as I stared at the journal that held Bella's thoughts, all the things she had thought and felt after I left her, I realized that the hole had been there all along. There was no escaping it. It simply was.

Placing a gentle hand on my arm, Cassie smiled at me. "Listen, I've got some stuff to do down here." She looked up. "I'm sure you remember where her room was. Why don't you go up there and…read."

I got to my feet, not surprised to feel my knees tremble. "I…" I ran a hand through my hair. "Thank you."

She laughed as she rose from the couch. "Hey, listen, as far as guests go, you're not much trouble. I don't have to make coffee, or tea, or offer you a soda." Cassie grinned. "Hell, I don't even have to pretend I can cook!"

I smiled at her and slowly turned toward the stairs. They had been stripped and repainted, probably several times, since I had last walked on them. I walked to the door of what had once been Bella's room and put my hand on the doorknob. It was there that I found myself frozen. Though I knew the room would not look the same, I could not help but wonder if being in there, being in the room where I had watched her sleep so many nights would bring me peace – or tear me in half.

There was only one way to find out. I opened the door.

The breath rushed out of me as I surveyed the room. It might have been any room now. Of course, so many years had passed that it had been silly to even consider that it would spark any memory in my mind. The walls were a soft khaki color now. There was a double bed with a dark brown comforter and a dresser of dark wood in the same place where Bella's dresser had once been. So that was familiar at least.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Bella's scent was long gone, of course, but with my eyes closed and my memories taking precedence, I could pretend that I still detected the aroma that had tormented and tortured and seduced me so long ago. My flawless memory recreated it in perfect detail. And her memory still had the ability to both torment and soothe.

I suspected that it would always be that way.

Crossing the small room, I settled on the bed. It wasn't the same bed, but in my mind it became hers. I was back in Bella's room and after a moment, I was ready to "hear" her voice once more. Carefully, I opened the top journal, noting that the date began in 2007. This would have been the first then, not too long after I left.

_January 2, 1007_

_It hasn't even been four months yet. That seems so odd that my whole world could have shattered and been recreated into this…nothingness in such a short span of time. Four months ago I was happier than I'd ever expected to be. I was sure of what my future held and who I'd be with for… Well, forever. That's what I wanted. That's what I asked him for. And he said no. He didn't want me; he didn't want a forever with me._

_And who could blame him? I'm nothing. Just a human who can't manage to walk across a flat surface without doing damage. I'm nothing special. Now I'm nothing special and I'm alone._

_There's no one I can talk to. I want to talk, I NEED to talk, but there's no one who knows their secret. So I've decided that I'll just write what I want to say here, where it can hurt no one but me. And since I'm already broken, it won't really matter. Will it?_

_He's gone. There. I've said it. He's not coming back. Ever. And I'll be alone. Forever._

_I wonder if it will ever hurt less? I'm afraid I already know the answer to that one._

I closed my eyes in agony. If I had ever doubted that I had hurt her beyond repair, I held the proof in my hands now. It seemed as if I heard the door open from a long distance. Then there was Cassie, kneeling in front of me on the floor, her soft, warm hands closing over my own, which were digging into the mattress below me. Vaguely, I heard the mattress give way, the cloth of the bedding ripping in protest.

"Shhh…." she whispered, soothing with her touch, her voice, her simple acceptance.

I looked up and grimaced apologetically, gesturing to the ruined mattress. "Sorry," I mumbled.

A quick grin flashed across her face, though her dark eyes remained concerned. "No one sleeps here anyway," she assured me. "Besides, it's an old bed. It was mine when I was growing up."

"Still," I started to protest.

"Damn, you really _do_ like to take the blame for everything, don't you?" Her voice was amused.

I looked at her curiously. "Excuse me, what do you-?"

Cassie shrugged and sat down beside me on the bed. "It's a habit of yours that Nana Bells warned me about," she explained, somewhat inadequately in my opinion.

"You'll have to be a bit more clear than that," I said, my voice rather more cool than I intended. This woman was both infuriating and compelling, but right now my anger and frustration was robbing me of my manners. Reading Bella's words, feeling her pain, had opened the wound and I was hurting, lashing out.

Cassie McBride met my gaze, took in my anger, my clenched fists and taut jaw and she – giggled. Cassie looked at the angry, unstable _vampire_ sitting beside her and laughed. I suddenly saw the humor in the situation, or rather, my awe at her bravery made me laugh. Bella's lack of self-preservation had bred true in this descendant sitting before me.

"Well, okay," Cassie took a deep breath. "After Nana figured it out, why you left I mean, she sort of made the connection between this _handicap_ you have of taking the weight of the world on your shoulders and your decision to leave." She nudged me with her elbow. "And I'm seeing that she was right. You do tend to get a bit dramatic, don't you?" Her eyes were alight with wicked humor.

I wasn't sure if I should be insulted or laugh right along with her. To my shame, I tried to hold onto my wrath. I did not want to relinquish it. It felt right somehow, the rage and loss that surged through me. But one look into Cassie's eyes, at once so new and so familiar, and my grip on the maelstrom within me loosened, as if she was prying my fingers away from a weapon.

The anger bled away from me, leaving a strange exhaustion and lassitude in its wake. Cassie put her arm around me as if I was a tired and cranky child, and suddenly that was what I felt like. A child who had given himself up to anger, cranky because I had not gotten my way.

Perhaps that was what hurt the most. I _had_ gotten my way. My wish had been for Bella to have a normal, _human_ life and she had. What right had I to be unhappy that she had done exactly as I had wanted her to do? I recalled the look of joy on Bella's face as she married Jacob Black. Yes, I had wanted her to find happiness. A part of me admitted, however, that I had not wanted her to forget _me_ and what we had shared, even if I had tarnished it by leaving her.

"Was she happy?" I _had_ to know, but I didn't _want_ to know. I was afraid of the answer, either answer could crush me.

Cassie met my gaze. "Yes, she was happy."

The tension returned, bringing with it the shame and tug of conflicting emotions. Tender hands cradled my face and in them I sensed forgiveness, not just from Cassie, but from Bella. My Bella would not have sent Cassie to me if she had not forgiven me. I had to hold to that truth, to believe in the words Cassie had given me.

"But just so you know, I think she would have been happy with you too," Cassie said softly. Then she laughed. "But then I wouldn't exist, so I can't say that I wish it had been differently." As always, she was a surprise. She kept me off balance, and I was not sure how I felt about that.

My lips quirked as I stared at the irrepressible Miss McBride. "I'll bet you gave Bella fits, didn't you?"

"Apparently so," Cassie agreed with a smirk. "I was mouthy, reckless, and had an aversion to rules."

"I can see that," I replied.

"And I haven't changed since then," she added.

"I'm not surprised."

Cassie laughed then, removing her arm from around my shoulders. She looked around the room and sighed. "I'm going to miss it here," she said quietly.

I was confused. Again. Still? "What do you mean?" It seemed easier to ask rather than to try and guess. I would never get it right anyway, not with Cassie. My gift was useless and my vast experience had done nothing to prepare me for her.

She rolled her eyes at me, shaking her head in disappointment. "Well, now that I've met you, you don't honestly think I'm going to let you get away without badgering you to take me to meet the rest of the Cullens, do you?"

Cassie looked at me as if I was the biggest idiot in the world to have missed such an obvious point. It seemed that Cassie McBride wanted to meet my family. I gave her an uncertain look and she simply nodded.

So apparently, the decision had already been made – without me. Somehow, I was not surprised.


	5. Chapter 5: And Love Said No

I don't own these characters. They are the sole property of Stephanie Meyers. I only borrow them. No humans are permanently harmed through my actions, though I do confess to harassing, annoying, torturing, and exasperating them – just because it's fun. I make no money from my little stories, sad day. I only play in the sandbox, I didn't build it.

**Chapter 5: And Love Said No**

"_Kill me  
I begged and love said no  
Leave me  
for dead and let me go  
Kill me  
I cried and love said no."_

"And Love Said No" written by Ville Hermanni Valo

_**January 30, 2007**_

_**I've been spending a lot of time at the reservation. When I'm with Jake, that hole in my chest doesn't seem so big. I almost feel normal when I'm with him. Almost. He wants to be more than friends. I can see it in his eyes every time he looks at me. But I can't. Not yet. Maybe not ever. I just…**_

_**Why is everything so complicated?**_

The words etched themselves into my mind. I would never be free of Bella. I had accepted that simple and incontrovertible decades ago. Now, however, it seemed as if she had ever been free of me. What had I done? And did it matter now? It could not be undone, no matter how much I might wish it.

_**February 28, 2007**_

_**I can see that soon I'm going to have make some sort of decision about Jake. I'm not being fair to him. But how do I explain that I'm broken. That I just don't work right anymore? And how – more importantly WHY – would I offer him a broken me? **_

_**Jake knows I'm in pieces. He's had a front row seat watching me trying to put all of those mangled pieces together again. But I'm that puzzle, the one stuck in the back of the closet that's missing pieces. I can't be put back together again, not completely. So I'm missing parts of me and apparently he's ignoring the fact that I'm a lost cause. He tells me he's got time. And that he'll wait.**_

_**I guess I just have to figure out if I want him to wait**_**. **_**Or if I'm selfish enough to ask him to wait. It's not right, but it's what I need. Just how far am I willing to go? How much will I use Jake? **_

I put aside Bella's journal. Was I really ready to watch Bella's relationship with Jacob unfold before me? I knew her words would bring this vague and distant notion I had of their life together into vivid life. I would see her, _feel_ what she felt, imagine what she dreamed, and for the first time in decades, I would have to allow that bond I would always have with her flare to painful life.

It would be painful and messy and I was not sure I was ready for this. Then I looked down at the journals - the journals that Bella had left with her great-granddaughter, for_ me_. She had known I would return someday, and she had wanted me to read her words. I would put my trust in Bella's love and gentle mercy one more time.

_**March 2, 2007**_

_**Why did I ever think that Victoria would forget about me? The Cullens killed James. James was Victoria's mate. And now she wants me dead. She still thinks I'm Edward's. I would laugh if that thought didn't hurt so much. **_

_**Today, some wolves saved me. The wolves that have the whole area terrified. But today they saved my life.**_

_**I'm scared. I'm not afraid that Victoria will eventually get her wish, but that she'll hurt Charlie or Jake when she does. Of course, I'm not seeing Jake much anymore. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe that will keep him safe.**_

My leaving had only left Bella vulnerable, put her in more danger. There had been no one to protect her.

_There had been Jake_, a small voice reminded me. He had saved her, healed her. He had loved her. Maybe more than I did. While I had let fear conquer love, he had not. He had managed to do what I could not.

The guilt and shame dropped me to my knees. I slipped from the bed and onto my knees beside it, the journal tumbling to a rest with me. I had broken her. I had taken away part of her. Even now, I had no way of knowing if I had made the right decision. She had had what I wanted her to have, but had it made her _happy_?

The bedroom door flew open, banging against the wall and there was Cassie. "Do I need to pack for cooler weather? Or warmer? Or both?" She shot the questions at me rapid fire and I stared back at her blankly for a moment. For a moment, I felt as if I was facing Alice, or perhaps some sort of odd, rather intimidating Alice/Rosalie hybrid. Cassie tapped her foot impatiently and her eyebrows rose. "Well?" she prompted.

"Uh…cooler weather, but bring along some clothes for warmer weather," I finally answered. By the time I worked out that I had pretty much admitted that she would be with me and my family long enough for the seasons to change she was already gone and I could hear her zooming down the hallway. Cassie McBride seemed to have only one speed – full throttle. If it had not been so disconcerting I might have found it amusing.

I knew I would have to give my family some warning, some sort of explanation. Though Alice might already be aware of Cassie and expecting her arrival. In fact, looking back, I was almost sure she was. My sister's gifts had gotten stronger with the passing decades, and now she did have more control over what she saw – and what she did not see. But now I wondered if she had seen Cassie. Long ago, I had told Alice that I did not want to know what she saw for Bella. So if she had had any insights into Bella's life, I did not know.

Only when Bella had died had Alice broken her silence, and then simply gave me the bare facts and let me do with that information what I wanted. Of course, she had handed me a packed bag at the same time, so my reaction was pretty much a foregone conclusion. I had not questioned, just accepted the bag and walked out of the house. Now I wondered what Alice had done after I left. Prepared a guest room maybe? Stocked the house with human food? Probably, knowing Alice.

_**March 18, 2007**_

_**The wolves… Well, I guess I know now why they saved me. God, I feel like I'm living in the Twilight Zone. I guess Edward was right. I am a magnet for trouble and danger. But I can't think of Jake as dangerous, not when he's saved me…in so many ways.**_

_**Is it finally time to let go? **_

Why did those words hurt so much? Why did they feel as if they took root in my chest and bloomed out in tendrils of agony? It was what I had wanted for her. It was what she deserved. She had deserved happiness, to find someone who could love her as she deserved.

As I stared at Bella's journal, I wondered why she had wanted me to have them. Had she wanted me to know how I had broken her? Or would I later read that she had managed to have the life I had always wanted for her and that she had been happy? Which would hurt more?

Then I knew that Bella's tender heart would not have prompted her to revenge. Somewhere in these journals I would find my redemption…her forgiveness. And for that gift, I would endure the torments of hell itself.

I continued reading.

_**April 2, 2007**_

_**Today Jake found me on the cliff. I was getting ready to jump by myself. I didn't want to wait for him as I had promised. I guess… I was hoping to hear Edward just one more time. I wanted to tell him good-bye.**_

_**I didn't jump. But I did say good-bye.**_

So now I knew. I had it before me in Bella's own words. She had stopped loving me, and she had moved on.

I hadn't deserved her. But at least now I knew.

Cassie's dark head peered around the door again. "Do you guys have a pool?" she asked, her black eyes bright with curiosity. "Because a girl has to stay in shape and I like running, but let's face it, sometimes you've got to change it up, you know?"

I couldn't help but laugh. I had laughed and smiled more in the past few hours than I had in years…dozens of years.

God help me, Cassie McBride just might be the life of me.


	6. Chapter 6: Honey and Ashes

I don't own these characters. They are the sole property of Stephanie Meyers. I only borrow them. No humans are permanently harmed through my actions, though I do confess to harassing, annoying, torturing, and exasperating them – just because it's fun. I make no money from my little stories, sad day. I only play in the sandbox, I didn't build it.

**Chapter 6: Honey and Ashes**

"_There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief." - __Aeschylus_

** /L\\**

I tucked away the journals, temporarily overwhelmed by the emotions they evoked in me. I have existed for seven decades without her. Why was it that I suddenly felt her loss so keenly? It was as if it happened yesterday. Not for the first time, I cursed my vampiric nature. I was bound and tethered to my memories – not for me the bliss of setting them free to drift away. I tilted my head and listened to strange thumps and muffled curses.

Cassie was making her way down the stairs, carrying a bag from the sounds of things. I jumped to my feet, ready to offer my assistance, all the while castigating myself for my lack of manners. I reached her just in time to see her shrug and shove it down the stairs.

It was loud. But effective. She grinned as she looked down at the suitcase at the bottom of the stairs, which is exactly where she wanted it to be. She turned to me and dusted her hands off, as if pleased to have finished an unpleasant chore. "There we go," she said with great satisfaction. There was something quite different about this woman and I was just beginning to realize that I had only touched the surface of it so far. I wasn't sure if that charmed or frightened me. Maybe both, as did Cassie herself.

"So, when do you want to leave?" she asked, looking at me eagerly. She looked and sounded as if she was getting ready to tour Europe, rather than put herself in the care of a vampire and his coven.

Curiouser and curiouser.

"Uh, do you have anything you need to take care of before we go?" I asked.

"Nope," she answered promptly. "I'm between jobs and I don't have any pets, boyfriends, girlfriends, or otherwise nosey people that I have to account to – which means I'm free to leave whenever you are." Then Cassie shot me a challenging look as if she expected me to back out of our agreement.

As if I could. Everything about her intrigued me, and I knew I would not be able to leave the mystery of her alone until I had gotten some answers. Curiosity alone compelled me.

"What about you?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the old house is still there you know," Cassie reminded me. "Nana Bells used to go by and talk to the guy who stopped in and takes care of it. Old guy, crazier than bat shit." Cassie grinned. "Nana said she went to school with him. He died four years ago and his great-grandson took over." Cassie rolled her eyes. "And that boy keeps trying to get into my panties." She snorted. "As if!"

I laughed, shaking my head. Cassie McBride was irrepressible and irreverent, but her quirky nature was appealing in some odd way. "Yes, I would like to stop by and see the house."

For me, it would always be THE house. It was the home to which I had taken Bella to meet my family. It was the place where I had allowed myself to dream impossible dreams – of sharing an eternity with the woman I loved. Yes, I had once allowed myself the sinful dream of transforming Bella into the same nightmarish, damned creature that I was. I had let go of that dream in order to give her the life she deserved, but that did not mean that it did not leave the bitter taste of ashes in my mouth. Dreams consumed by fire and time, nothing more than insignificant motes in the air by now.

Shaking myself from my morbid thoughts, I grabbed the suitcase and carried it out to her car. "We'll take your car to the house," I said. "If that's all right?"

Cassie nodded. "Did you run the whole way here from…" She tilted her head and studied me. "From wherever you came?"

"Seattle," I said, shrugging. "And yes, I ran." It was still odd to speak so freely of my abilities with a human. I had not done that since Bella. It was somewhat fitting that I should do so again with this lovely young woman, who had Bella's blood pulsing in her veins. "Would it be all right to take your car to Seattle and then we'll take mine?"

Cassie nodded. "Whatever," she agreed easily, still seemingly unconcerned that she was putting herself into the care of a vampire, or that she was heading toward a meeting with six _other_ vampires. Bella's streak of recklessness had bred true in Cassie. I smiled at the thought.

Almost as an afterthought, she asked, "Will we be staying in Seattle?"

It was my turn to confound her so I simply shook my head. "No."

I expected her to press, was almost hoping she would. Cassie, being Cassie, of course, just shrugged. "Okay."

I sighed, wondering when I had lost my mind. Upon meeting Cassie was my best guess.

We put her suitcase in the trunk and I put the journals in the backseat. They would never leave my possession again; they were all I had left of Bella. Then I looked to my side, where Cassie was driving and singing along with the radio, and I realized that the journals were not _all_ I had left…

**/LEGACY\\**

The house looked the same and yet not. I realized then that it was the loved ones inside that had made the house a home. How long had it been since I felt as if I had a home?

_September 2006…_

That was answered easily enough. No time at all to a vampire, a lifetime to a fragile human. I walked up the steps of the porch and took a deep breath. I heard Cassie's footsteps behind me, then beside me. I felt her slim, warm hand slip into mine and she squeezed it. I couldn't bear to look at her, but I gave it an answering squeeze.

_Thank you…_

I felt her silent words of welcome and we moved toward the door. It opened soundless when I punched in the security code with my free hand. As I stepped through, Cassie released my hand and I immediately felt…bereft. Alone. My solitude crashed in upon me once more.

I looked at her and she smiled tenderly. "I just thought I'd give you a few minutes…alone."

As she said the words, I realized that she was right. I needed some privacy to face these most poignant memories head on. I nodded my gratitude as she settled down to sit on a step, her back to me and her face lifted up to the sun. Her pale, peachy skin shone in the golden light, her dark hair gleamed in a waterfall down her back. My hand twitched.

I turned and walked into the house where I had, so briefly, felt more like a man than a vampire.

My piano had been there, and she had sat beside me on the bench, listening to the song I had composed for her. I closed my eyes and recreated the memory in perfect, painfully exquisite detail. I could feel her warmth, leaning against my side, hear the soft exhalations of her breath, hear the pounding of her pulse, and smell the beautiful temptation of the liquid that pulsed in her body.

She had been beautiful and human and loving and…mine.

Mine so briefly. So imperfectly. And I had destroyed it. Out of love, it was true, but I had destroyed it nevertheless. I had destroyed Bella too, and it had been someone else that put the pieces together, fitting the tattered broken pieces of Bella Swan into a living, breathing human being again.

Jacob Black.

A man I both loved and hated for the very same reasons. I thought of the young woman sitting on the steps, waiting for me to make peace with my tortured memories. She wasn't just Bella's blood, she was Jake's too. How odd to think that Jake's great-granddaughter would be the one to reach out to me when I faced the idea of Bella's death.

Bella was gone. Dead. She no longer existed. Yet, by some cruel quirk of fate, I was still here, my brain still functioning even if my heart did not. I realized that as much as I had broken Bella, I had broken myself as well. Where Bella had had Jake to put her together again, I had…no one.

Was it fate or chance that brought Cassie into the room at that exact moment? I would never know, and eventually I would no longer care. What mattered is that she came to me when my need was greatest. Once more, her slender hand gripped mine. Oh so tightly, she held onto me.

Then her arms were around me as I wept the tearless, unsatisfying sobs of a vampire. Somehow, I was on my knees and her soft, warm arms embraced me, holding me closely, gathering me to her as if I was a child. I found solace there in her warmth, the steady thrumming, _human_ beat of her heart. She lent her heart's rhythm to me and for a few, brief moments I was alive again. She rocked me back and forth and if I had been able to recall them, I knew that memories of my human mother would have flooded over me at that point. But those memories were too old and distant and faded and I had lost my grip on them years ago.

They fluttered just out of reach…out of consciousness.

No matter. I had Cassie and she had me. I was weak and she was strong. I was lost and she had found me. It went beyond sex or blood or even love. It simply was.

I was Edward and she was Cassie and something, perhaps forged before she had been born, linked us.

There was no going back.

And the taste of ashes left me, the honey sweetness of venom and Cassie and even perhaps forgiveness swept over me.

Honey and ashes…

Cassie and Edward…

Redemption and sorrow…

Hope…


	7. Chapter 7: Haven in a Heartless World

I don't own these characters. They are the sole property of Stephanie Meyers. I only borrow them. No humans are permanently harmed through my actions, though I do confess to harassing, annoying, torturing, and exasperating them – just because it's fun. I make no money from my little stories, sad day. I only play in the sandbox, I didn't build it.

**Chapter 7: Haven in a Heartless World**

"**The family is a haven in a heartless world." ~Attributed to Christopher Lasch**

** ~Legacy~**

The drive to Seattle was mostly silent. Sometimes Cassie would turn on the radio and hum along with the music. Her taste was eclectic and confusing; I couldn't predict what she would choose next. Then she would abruptly turn off the radio and stare out the window with a familiar line between her brows and her generous lips pressed together as if she was contemplating something displeasing to her.

"Are you nervous?" I asked when we left her car and put her things in mine. She looked at me, obviously surprised.

"Why would I be nervous?" she asked, her mouth pulling up in a smile. She seemed genuinely surprised at the question.

"Well," I said. "You're about to put yourself at the mercy of a coven of vampires." Surely that was reason enough for discomfort, or even fear? But apparently not to Cassie McBride.

"If you were on your way to meet…I don't know, maybe let's say Snow White or Luke Skywalker or somebody like that, wouldn't you be the teeniest bit excited?"

"Rather like you're meeting Darth Vader…times six," I commented.

Cassie scoffed. "There's another mythic figure who couldn't see past what he wasn't allowed to have." She sighed. "Poor thing, such a waste."

"Don't tell me you're sympathetic to such an iconic villain?" I asked in disbelief.

"He got a raw deal," Cassie insisted. "They took him away from his mother and then everyone was shocked when he had anger issues." She laughed. "And the Jedi were supposed to be so smart."

"I wouldn't have thought of it that way in the first place," I admitted.

"You poor deprived vampire," she sympathized. "I can see I'm going to have to kick your ass and teach you to enjoy life – or existence or whatever you want to call it – a little bit more. I told you vampire boy, this is it – your only shot. Might as well make it a doozy."

Vampire boy. That was a new one. I had a feeling that Cassie could be quite inventive in coming up with nicknames for me.

I remained silent because really, what was there to say. Once again, I could only imagine what the others would make of her. "I wonder why Alice never saw _you_ coming?" I asked, my question directed more at myself than at her.

Cassie shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe she just wasn't looking for me." That seemed a logical enough explanation. But then I remembered that Alice had only caught glimpses of Bella after –

After I left.

After she married Jacob.

After she bore him a son.

After she lived the human life I had wanted for her.

Not until they end of Bella's life had she revealed what she knew. Only after…

_After, after, after._

My anguish must have flickered across my face because Cassie took one look at me and heaved a long sigh.

"So tell me, vampire boy, are you always this brooding?" Cassie asked, settling into the passenger seat with every appearance of making herself at home. "I just want to know so I can prepare myself for the emotional overload." She shook her head. "Nana told me, of course, but it's like the whole not aging thing, and not really appreciated until one sees it up close and in person."

"I suppose I am rather…introspective," I admitted.

"Introspective, huh? I think that's just a nice word for brooding," Cassie observed. She shrugged. "Whatever, I guess that's your thing so I really shouldn't tease you too much." There was a sidelong glance from dark, dark eyes. "Still, when you think about it, your deal isn't really all that bad."

"What?" Was she kidding me? The undeniable desire for blood? The perpetual loneliness that had been my lot since I walked away from Bella? The constant feeling of being the odd man out? And the inescapable knowledge that I had an eternity of it all waiting for me?

Cassie rolled her eyes. "Think about it, vampire boy. You're gorgeous. You're pretty much indestructible, and you have a family that loves you." She leaned against the window, breathing on it and then making idle patterns with her fingers in the condensation left behind. "It's really not a bad deal when you think about it."

"I'm glad you think so." I couldn't help the bite to my words.

"So you just like feeling sorry for yourself. Is that it?" One dark brow was arched, her expression skeptical.

"You can't understand, Cassie," I said quietly. "This existence…it's outside the realm of your comprehension."

"Outside the realm of my comprehension, huh?" I heard a delicate snort of derision. "Sounds like a fancy way to say 'fuck off little girl, you don't have a clue' if you ask me."

There was silence for a long moment between us. "You know, there are lots of _humans_ out there that manage to somehow face each day with a lot less going for them than you have, you know." She looked out the window again and her expression was pained. "Not the whole _blood_ lust thing, but good old fashioned lust can screw you up easy enough. There are lots of people who have destroyed their lives or someone else's because of a need to get into someone's pants. And that's _everywhere_. I get that you're lonely, but guess what? A lot of people are lonely. Including yours truly. But I think loneliness is just part of existing, inescapable really, when you get down to it."

More silence. Her eyes followed the trees as we drove.

"I think maybe you should focus on what's good in your life – what you _have_ rather than what you don't." Cassie's voice was soft and gentle.

"Like you do?" I was amused at her reasoning. But I had the perspective of almost two centuries of existence. This girl, with her fleeting human life span, could never relate.

Cassie nodded. "Well, yes. I deal with stuff every day that you can't comprehend either. It's outside _your_ realm, vampire boy. But I don't sit around and mope and let myself stay sad about things that cannot be. This is it; this is my time, my place. And really there's nothing to do but deal with it." She snorted. "I pulled up my big girl panties a long time ago. Maybe you should too. Your big boy pants, that is. Unless you're into that sort of thing." She grinned at me. "I don't know your underwear habits so I wouldn't want to presume."

I had to laugh. There was no other choice. "God I can't wait for you to meet Emmett. I have a feeling you two will get along famously."

"Oh yeah, I'm looking forward to meeting him," Cassie said with enthusiasm. "Nana Bells really liked him." She paused. "She missed him. She missed all of them, not just you."

Yet another illustration of my selfishness.

"Still, I guess that was the way it was supposed to be," Cassie mused.

"Perhaps," I allowed.

Another silence fell over us. Finally, I broke it. "I'm assuming you're okay with flying?"

"Wouldn't be here if I wasn't," she answered enigmatically. She looked at me, her lips quirked. "Are you flying me somewhere, vampire boy?"

"To Maine," I explained. "We have a house out there."

"I'm betting you have a house in a lot of places," Cassie noted. "Must be nice, still…a lot of decorating decisions to make."

"I suppose, though Esme takes care of most of that." I shrugged. I had been mostly indifferent to my surroundings for a long time.

"Ah yes, the vampire mommy," Cassie teased. "Do you suppose she ever gets tired of keeping you all in line?"

"She never seems to," I replied.

Cassie shrugged. "I think I'd be tempted to tell you all to go to the devil every now and then."

"Maybe she is," I allowed. "Still, it's not like she's really our _mother,_ she's just sort of…well, a role model I guess you'd say, someone we can look to for an example of how we should conduct ourselves." I paused. "She is our leader's mate, I suppose. And that gives her a position of respect."

"You're really cute with all the formal talk, vampire boy," Cassie said. "It's all really 1918."

"Well, that's when I was turned."

"I know," Cassie said dryly. "Nana Bells told me."

I didn't know what to say and by that time we were at the airport. I grabbed her bag and parked the car. Twenty minutes later I had purchased tickets for us. I was kind of expecting Cassie to protest me buying her ticket, but she seemed to accept it as a matter of course. I found it a strange relief not to argue with her over the issue.

In some ways, Cassie was very easy to be around; her presence was soothing in unexpected ways and yet unsettling in others. Like almost everything about her, it was a contradiction.

She fell asleep on the plane almost as soon we lifted off and I was given the luxury of studying her without her dark gaze penetrating into what might be my soul. So much of what she said resonated with Bella's thoughts, and yet she was entirely her own person. In the day since I'd met her, I'd been angry and sad and confused and hopeful – _feeling_ more than I had in the seventy years that had come before. Even my ever-present despair lightened in her presence.

She had been expecting me. I sensed behind her carefree façade that there lurked a burden, something which she would not yet share. I had all the time in the universe, but I wondered…

Did _she_?

Of course not. She was limited by her human frailties. I was limited by my vampiric needs. Were our limits somehow compatible?

What would finding Cassie mean to my existence? My future?

The plane landed and Cassie woke without prompting. We were soon in another car, one I had waiting at the airport, and making our way toward the latest Cullen residence.

She was mostly silent, not even turning the radio on, seemingly content to simply watch the passing scenery. It did not take long and we were there.

My family was standing on the porch, waiting for us.

Alice's expression betrayed her longing and I could read her thoughts. _I think we're going to be friends, good friends. But it's all a little hazy._

I wondered if Cassie's unique heritage had anything to do with that. Probably not, but it was certainly a theory worth putting forth to Carlisle. Rosalie was sizing Cassie up and coming to the conclusion that the "little human" was not going to be easily intimidated. She had no idea. Emmett was just up for some fun, having missed the way Bella had livened up things for our family. Jasper was quiet, as was his way. Esme was searching Cassie's face for sign of Bella and finding them. Her thoughts were warm and welcoming.

Carlisle was smiling slightly, his thoughts reflecting his excitement that new knowledge was coming his way. Alice had given him a heads up about Cassie's wolf blood line and he was looking forward to exploring whatever information that Cassie might bring his way. Cassie might find hers attention monopolized by Carlisle's insatiable curiosity, but I didn't think she'd mind.

I had expected Cassie to be hesitant getting out the car, perhaps approaching my family with caution. I should have known better.

As soon as I pulled to a stop, she was climbing out the car and striding toward the porch, seemingly at ease with approaching six vampires. She looked at each of them for a long moment, murmuring their names as she studied them.

"Carlisle…" Deep respect in her voice as she spoke his name.

"Esme…" She smiled at Esme.

"Rosalie," Cassie murmured with a nod of her head.

"Alice." There was immense joy in her voice at saying that name.

"Jasper." A soft note there, one that surprised Jasper.

"And Emmett," Cassie ended with a grin. To everyone's shock, she walked up to Emmett and gave him a fierce hug.

"I don't know you, but I've missed you," Cassie said, tilting her head. She looked back at me. "See? I don't know how you can be so miserable when you've got all of them."

Emmett snorted with laughter and hauled Cassie up against his side. "I like you, little human, I really do."

She gave him a disgruntled look and shoved ineffectually against his side. "And I like you, big vampire, I really do." Then she frowned. "Though I don't know why."

Rose laughed and I heard her relief.

_Oh, Edward, she might be just what you needed_…Rose thought.


	8. Chapter 8: Crowned with Consolation

I don't own these characters. They are the sole property of Stephenie Meyer. I only borrow them. No humans are permanently harmed through my actions, though I do confess to harassing, annoying, torturing, and exasperating them – just because it's fun. I make no money from my little stories, sad day. I only play in the sandbox, I didn't build it.

_**Author's Note: LOOONNNGGG over due, I know. But I am sincerely trying to finish up some of these stories. This post has been half-written for months. Today, it was finally completely written. My apologies!**_

**Chapter 8: Crowned with Consolation**

"_**For grief is crowned with consolation." - **__**William Shakespeare**_

_** ~Legacy~**_

I had to laugh at myself, thinking that Cassie McBride would be intimidated by a mere coven of vampires. She handled meeting my family with all of the aplomb that Bella had, but she had no fears that they wouldn't like her. She offered herself as she was, and if they didn't care for her, then it was their loss and not hers. She could not be anything other than what she was. She was simply herself, as if she knew that was enough.

And it was.

Alice soon had her settled into a room and Cassie declared that she was going to have some "human" time and take a nap. She was hardly up the stairs when everyone gathered around me and began talking (or thinking) all at once. I wanted to wince at the cacophony of voices I heard both with my hears and my head. All of them wanted to be heard at once. All of them wanted my attention at the same time. The family had not been this animated in decades.

"She's almost as much fun as Bella," Emmett noted. Then Rose gave the back of his head a light, admonishing tap and he shot her a disgruntled look. "What did I say?"

She rolled her eyes at him and hugged me close. Such shows of emotion were rare for Rosalie, and all the more significant because of that. "Edward, she's…amazing," Rose said. "Really, there's something about her, isn't there?" She sounded as puzzled as I felt.

I nodded my head. "She's so much like Bella, but not." I shrugged. "She's not Bella reincarnated by any means. There are more differences than similarities, but... I don't really know how to explain it, but the more you get to know her the more you'll know what I mean."

Esme held my hand tightly. "She's good for you, Edward. I can tell that just by looking at you. You're more…at peace than I've seen you in a long time." _I've worried so about you, Edward. If this woman helps your heart heal then I love her already_. _How could I not?_ Then a flash of a suppressed thought from Esme. _Could she be his mate? Maybe we were wrong all these years. _Then the thought was gone, buried beneath a mountain of mundane observations.

I sighed and tried to keep from betraying my exasperation. Esme would have liked nothing more than to see me mated. She had longed worried about me and my solitary state. "I'm going outside for a while," I told her, giving her a kiss on the cheek. I needed to be alone with my thoughts and they were all used to my introverted nature.

Once outside, I contemplated the idea of a mate. It was a familiar path of thought for me. I had had decades since leaving Bella to ponder it and yet I felt no closer to an answer now than I had all those years ago. What constituted a mate? Was it a feeling? A bond? If a mate was lost, _could_ a vampire find another mate? From what I had seen of mated vampires who lost their mate, it did not seem that it was so. It was not uncommon for the surviving mate to find a way to end their existence, as I had once considered ending mine.

Love in the human world was a transitory thing, changeable and fickle. In the vampire world, a mating was more than a marriage, the bond between the two more than mere love. Humans fell in love again after losing a spouse, but could a vampire do the same thing? Traditional vampire wisdom said that a vampire loved once and only once and it was forever. But that same wisdom decreed that only human blood could sustain us.

Carlisle's innovative idea to live on animal blood had been greeted with derision and doubt. Others of our kind still looked at him, and us, expecting us to go mad or succumb to the inevitable blood lost. Yet, despite all that we had been told was impossible, we had continued to feed off of animals. Not one of us had killed a human in a hundred years.

Was the idea of a mate similarly incorrect? Before Carlisle, not one of our kind had even considered living on animal blood. Had a mate survived and never even considered the idea that such a bond could occur twice? What if we were capable of mating more than once and just did not know it? After all, eternity is a long time to be alone and to grieve.

Every day, my family and I fought our natures and struggled to rise above our instincts. Could it be possible that a vampire could learn to love_ again_? And if so, what did that mean about the concepts of mating for our kind?

For decades, I had been convinced that I had left my mate behind. Then Emmett had one day commented that he didn't think a vampire was physically capable of walking away from their mate – ever. Since that day I had sometimes wondered.

What if the question was not whether a vampire could find more than one mate, but whether a vampire could be sure the one he had lost was actually his _mate_?

Had Bella been my mate? Or had she _almost_ been my mate? Were we not truly mated because there had never been a physical consummation of our love? Was a mating between a vampire and a human even really possible? As the years had passed, I had become more and more convinced that a mating between a human and a vampire simply wasn't possible.

Yes, there could be love. But that love could never be consummated. The danger was simply too great. My family had tried to convince me that Tanya and her sisters had proven that a vampire could love a human. But there were two fundamental differences.

One, what Tanya and Irina and Kate felt for their human lovers was not love but simply lust. It was easier to remain in control of lust. By simple definition, love demanded that one lose control, surrender entirely. Being with a human I loved would be a perilous undertaking, especially when I knew I could hold nothing back with a woman I loved.

Two, the simple fact of anatomy. As a female vampire, they accepted the invasion of a human body. There was less danger in that. As a male vampire, I would be taking, invading, putting a part of my body into the frail human body that I could all too easily damage. I could simply do more harm in my role as lover simply because of biology and the way our bodies were formed. I wouldn't mean to, but that wouldn't undo the damage.

So yes, though it would remain a wound unhealed, I had done the right thing in leaving Bella. The only other alternative would have been to take her mortal existence, her _soul_, away from her. And that was not an option. I had done right by Bella, but where, in the end, did that leave me? Had I doomed myself to being forever, eternally alone? Was Bella trying to free me from this prison of my own making, even now, from beyond the grave?

Bella, in her infinite wisdom and mercy, had sent this unlikely angel to tell me that she had forgiven me. No matter what message Cassie eventually gave me, I knew that forgiveness had to be part of it. Otherwise, there would have been no reason to direct Cassie my way. Cassie was simply too direct and honest to be hiding anger or disgust.

I sat on my favorite rock and stared out into the forest. Such forests were becoming rare these days. Man encroached on the natural world more and more. Even the vampires were finding it more difficult to remain unobtrusive, especially those that fed on humans. My family and I found it easier, due to our less conventional diet. It was easier to remain hidden among the humans when you weren't trying to figure out what to do with the corpses.

I wasn't surprised when Cassie sat down beside me. She nudged me and her warmth permeated my stone flesh for just a moment. "Hey, vampire boy," she murmured. "Are you out here being all broody and sulky?"

I couldn't help but laugh. Cassie tended to do that to a person – or a vampire. I shrugged. "I suppose so, that seems to be my role, doesn't it?"

Cassie studied me for a moment and then shook her head. "I think it's the role you've _taken_ on as your own." She laughed. "But I like to think we can reinvent ourselves at will – become someone we've never been before." She pressed against me briefly, another friendly nudge that sent fire licking through my side.

"What about you?" I asked. "Have you ever reinvented yourself?"

Cassie shrugged. "Several times over, in fact," she replied. "I'm not the same person I was in high school, or even last year. I don't pretend that I am. I don't want to be that person because that would mean I haven't learned anything or grown from my experiences in the past." She turned and settled dark, knowing eyes on me. "What about you?"

"I'm a vampire," I said.

She rolled her eyes at me. "I know that, vampire boy," Cassie said. "That wasn't the question. I asked if you had reinvented yourself. Ever?"

"It is part of a vampire's nature to be immutable and unchanging," I reminded her.

"So when you're changed into a vamp, you slap a coat of varnish on it and call it good?" she scoffed. "For beings who supposedly live an eternity, that doesn't seem very efficient...or wise. You'd think that vampires would have to be the most adaptable of creatures. The world changes around you all the time. If you don't adjust, you'll stick out. If you stick out, you get in trouble with the vulture boys. And that's something nobody wants."

"The vulture boys?" I asked, amused at her logic.

"Nana Bells told me about the Volturi," Cassie said breezily. "They're like the mall cops for vampires or something, right?"

"That's one way of looking at it," I allowed, thinking of Aro's face if he ever heard something like that. It might almost be worth having my head ripped off.

"Listen, I think vampires don't change because they don't want to change," Cassie said. "You're a perfect example."

"How so?" I asked.

"Well...you're just as sullen and brooding as Nana remembered you being, and here are, how many years later?"

I turned away from her. I turned away from her words. Then Cassie's hand was a white hot brand on mine. "I'm ready to give you the first part of Nana Bells' message," she said quietly and unexpectedly.

Her fingers linked with mine, darker flesh against my own pale skin. Delicate, feminine strength against more masculine lines. Life in contrast to death. Worthy linked with unworthy.

"The first thing Nana wanted me to tell you was this... It's all right to let her go now..."

And then Cassie's slim, strong arms were holding me, rocking me like a child, giving comfort where it was least expected but most needed. I could not cry, but Cassie did it for me. We both mourned the woman who had changed our lives, our very existences.

I sat there, wrapped in the warm, human arms of a woman I had not known existed just a few days ago...and I began to loosen my grip on Bella's memory.


End file.
